Families face reality that hopes are slim

A father who lost a son who worked just a few floors away. A husband who lost his wife on the day they were to celebrate their 25th anniversary.

The attacks that toppled the towers also shattered families.

"The whole community has so many losses," said one woman in a New York suburb where many World Trade Center workers lived. "They're all young men, and a lot of the families are without dads today."

Todd J. Ouida

Dad worked on the 77th floor, his son on the 105th.

When the first airplane crashed into the World Trade Center, Todd J. Ouida called his mother from his office to tell her he was OK, and so was her husband, Herbert.

But Todd, an options broker with the firm Cantor Fitzgerald, didn't really know his dad's condition; he hadn't spoken to him.

"He was trying to protect his mother, make sure she didn't worry," Herbert Ouida said. "That was the kind of guy Todd was."

Todd Ouida, 25, of River Edge, N.J., was killed when the north tower collapsed. His father survived, walking down in a little more than one hour.

Herbert Ouida said he thinks his son never made it below the floors where American Airlines Flight 11 struck.

"My son was trapped, and the first thing he thought about was making sure his mother didn't worry about me," he said.

A graduate of the University of Michigan, Todd Ouida got an internship at Cantor Fitzgerald after his junior year. The company offered him a job when he graduated.

"Your son is with you one minute, and then he's not with you," Herbert Ouida said. "There's a big void in our lives, and situations like this make you see the thinness of life and death. It's just such a fine line."

Andrew Desperito

Andrew Desperito, 43, spent three years as a New York City police officer before becoming a firefighter 14 years ago. He stayed behind helping victims in One World Trade Center, even after Two World Trade Center had collapsed.

"I always knew he was a hero," said his wife, Laura, who would have celebrated their 19th wedding anniversary this month. "He was incredible, and I'm drawing my strength from him."

Desperito was a father of three and enjoyed coaching his 10-year-old son's soccer team in the East Patchogue, N.Y., area where they lived.

Laura Desperito said she has learned her husband was on the 23rd floor of One World Trade Center when he and the men he was with heard a roar and were told over their radios that the other building had come down.

The men headed outside, but Desperito said she has been told by her husband's team that he stopped and ordered them ahead after coming across a woman having trouble making her escape. He had just exited when the building collapsed.

"He was too close," his wife said.

Desperito's body was among the first recovered last week, Laura Desperito said, and a wake was held for him Sunday.

Desperito said she had been planning the family's future, including renovations to their home. Now she is deciding where to bury her husband.

"There's a cemetery here, where through the trees you can see where the children play soccer," she said. "He can hear them and he'll be happy."

Odessa Morris

Odessa Morris was only going to work at the Pentagon for a couple of hours. Morris, 54, a budget analyst for the Army, wanted to head home early for her 25th wedding anniversary dinner.

She and her husband, Horace Anthony Morris, an English professor at Howard University, were heading to a favorite seafood restaurant.

At 9:30 a.m., after hearing about the attacks in New York, Horace Morris tried to call his wife at the Pentagon.

Thirty minutes later, a colleague came into class and told Horace Morris that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon.

He left to search for her at the Metro station where he dropped her off that morning, then at a local hospital and finally at the Pentagon, where he learned she was missing.

The couple had three children, two grown daughters and a son still in high school. They lived on 22 acres in the woods of Upper Marlboro, Md., where they kept an assortment of animals, including cows, rabbits, goats and chickens.

John F. Swaine
John A. Reo

John F. Swaine and John A. Reo were brothers-in-law and bond traders.

Swaine, 36, of Larchmont, N.Y., was married to the sister of Reo, 28, a University of Notre Dame graduate. Both worked at Cantor Fitzgerald Securities on the 104th floor of the trade center.

"We lost our son and our son-in-law together," Reo's mother, Judith, said softly. "We're in the process now of planning two funerals. It's unreal."

Swaine was the father of three girls--Sarah, 11; Emily, 9; and Hanna, 5. He had worked at Cantor Fitzgerald for more than 10 years, Judith Reo said. Her son, however, had started at the firm in May. John Reo recently had moved to Larchmont and was staying with his sister, Suzanne, and Swaine.

Larchmont was especially hard hit by the attacks, Judith Reo said. "The whole community has so many losses that it's incredible," she said. "They're all young men, and a lot of the families are without dads today."

Joseph Lovero

Joseph Lovero had just gotten off his overnight shift as a dispatcher for the Jersey City, N.J., Fire Department when he was asked to head to New York. The department needed him to go over to the scene of the trade center disaster to help the New York City Fire Department with communications.

Lovero, who was 60 and grew up in New Jersey, had always wanted to be a firefighter but was kept out due to a heart condition. For more than 30 years, he was a member of Jersey City's Gong Club, a volunteer group that helped firefighters on the job, doling out bottles of water on hot days and dishing out warm soup on frigid nights.

When the city began hiring civilians to be fire dispatchers four years ago, Lovero jumped at the chance, Burns said.

On the day of the attacks, Lovero made it to the scene. He was killed by debris from the collapse of the south tower, said Jersey City Fire Department Deputy Chief Jack Burns.

"He was the only guy from our force who was there," Burns said. "Joe was a great guy. He loved the fire department and, I think, he died doing what he loved to do."

Walter Matuza

Walter Matuza, 39, always was gifted with technology. From a young age, he became interested in computers. He studied photography in college and later went to work in telecommunications for Carr Futures.

A husband and father of three, Matuza loved his job at Carr, said his mother, Angela Sessa. "Isn't it a wonderful thing to love what you're doing," she said.

He was at work on the 92nd floor of the World Trade Center when it was attacked.

Patrick Dunn

Patrick Dunn's father was a career Navy man, and his older brother graduated from the naval academy at Annapolis, Md., when Patrick was a teenager.

So it didn't surprise anyone in his large Irish family in New York when the youngest Dunn decided--at age 14--that he also wanted to serve in the U.S. Navy.

He picked his private high school for its Navy ROTC program and was rewarded later with admission into the naval academy at Annapolis. He rose through the military ranks on a trek that led through several ships at sea and ultimately to a position at the Pentagon working for the chief of naval operations.

He died there in the attack.

"This guy was a walking, talking, no-kidding naval officer," said his brother, John. "You've got guys in the military who are professionals about it. He was one of them."

His next posting most likely would have been as captain of a ship, a position he coveted, his brother said.

"He would have loved it," said John Dunn, who has retired from active duty in the Navy.

Patrick Dunn found out about three months ago that his wife, Stephanie, was pregnant with the couple's first child.

Christopher Zarba

Christopher Zarba came from a musical family. His father was a piano teacher in the Boston area and his uncle is a well-known Massachusetts vocalist. And while Zarba worked as a software engineer for a communications firm, music also played a significant role in his life--he played the piano and French horn.

Zarba, 47, of Hopkinton, Mass., was aboard American Airlines Flight 11 when it crashed into the trade center.

Zarba was headed to Los Angeles to work on a computer system there for Concord Communications, said his father, Christopher Zarba. He was married and had a 3-year-old son, also named Christopher.

"The thing that's so sad about this is his son," Zarba's father said. "Those two were inseparable, and now he doesn't have a dad."

Since the tragedy, the already close-knit family has gotten even closer. They tell stories of Christopher, who would have turned 48 on Saturday.

They've also tried to cope by turning off the television, said Christopher's brother, Joe.

"It's a horrific experience watching your brother die over and over and over again," Joe Zarba said. "To know that he had a half-hour of terror on that plane is only helped by the fact that now he is in a better place."

The family held a memorial service over the weekend at a Catholic church in east Boston. At the service, Zarba's father played keyboards while his uncle, Frank, sang.

Manuel Mojica Jr.

Manuel Mojica Jr. loved being a New York City firefighter, and the 37-year-old Bellmore resident was on duty as usual the day two planes struck the trade center. He was among the first to arrive, his wife, Anna, said.

"He was a courageous man," she said. "He wouldn't turn his back on anyone."

Mojica loved being with his family and going to the gym, she said. The couple had been married for 10 years and had two children. "He was a beautiful man," she said. "He was a loving father and husband. He was my best friend."

David Laychak

Laurie Laychak was substitute teaching when a note was delivered to her 2nd-grade class. There had been an attack on the Pentagon, it read..

Laychak's husband, David, 40, worked there as a civilian budget analyst for the U.S. Army. She went to their Manassas, Va., home and spent the day praying he would call.

"That night, I couldn't go to sleep," she said. "I was afraid that if I stopped praying, that something bad would happen."

David Laychak worked for the Army for 17 years, his wife said. His father had been a career officer, and Laychak later regretted not joining up. "He really believed in serving his country and helping keep us safe and free," his wife said.

The talented athlete loved sports and being outdoors. But his main hobby was spending time with family. He played hide-and-seek, taught his kids baseball and basketball, and wrestled around on the ground.

"I'd have to call all three of them in for dinner," his wife said.

Other grieving families have said they cannot bear to look at the Pentagon again. She does not feel that way. It is where the couple met in 1984, when both worked there.

"If it weren't for the Pentagon, I would never have met him," she said.

Stephen Lefkowitz

Stephen Lefkowitz, 50, and his family traveled to Israel in August, and his wife, Sara, recalls an overwhelming sense of relief when their plane touched down in the U.S. "I was just so happy and grateful to be back in a safe place," she said.

Just one month later, Lefkowitz, who worked on the 87th floor of the World Trade Center, is among the victims. "I'm still clinging to hope," whispered Sara Lefkowitz from her home in Belle Harbor, N.Y., where she went through the motions of preparing for the Jewish New Year. With some 45 people missing from her community, many of her neighbors ushered in the holiday with a heavy heart, she said.

Bright and compassionate, Stephen Lefkowitz had just the right temperament to serve as a mediator for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, where his duties included listening to taxpayer grievances. "He was very patient. . . . He loved his work," said his wife.

They have a son, Daniel.

"Stephen and Sara were very happy together," said Chaim Bergstein of Farmington Hills, Mich., a brother of Sara Lefkowitz.

Bergstein was with Lefkowitz at a recent bar mitzvah. "I can still see him dancing with his son on his shoulders," he said.

Carrie Blagburn

Every morning, a representative from the U.S. Army gives an update to Leo Blagburn, whose 48-year-old wife was working in the Pentagon.

Carrie Blagburn, of Temple Hills, Md., worked for the government most of her life, beginning as a civilian employee for the Navy. She transferred to the Army as a budget analyst when the naval operations were being moved to another state.

Outside her job, which she loved in large part because of her friends at the Pentagon, Carrie Blagburn enjoyed sewing, bowling and dancing.

Lisa Gregg

Friends of 51-year-old Lisa Gregg were mourning the loss of a woman they recalled as intellectual and stylish.

Gregg, a senior vice president and the fixed income portfolio manager for Fred Alger Management Inc., worked on the 93rd floor of the trade center.

Though a talented financial analyst, Gregg first had gotten a PhD in history from Yale University in 1977. Her thesis was written on defense spending in the 15th Century, said friend Richard Sobel.

Nevertheless, he said Gregg weighed the job market for historians and pursued an MBA, which she earned from New York University in 1981.

She had worked at Fred Alger Management since 1983.

Growing up, Gregg had an aunt who lived in Chicago, whom she visited during summers. Sobel said she often talked about spending day after day in Chicago's museums.

"Lisa was very sharp, but shy. Still, very stylish," Sobel said. "She's just a lovely person, a wonderful spirit. A great sense of humor."

Lt. Col. Dennis Johnson

During his stint in the Army, Lt. Col. Dennis Johnson had numerous responsibilities. But the most difficult job he held during that time was being sent to the homes of grieving families who had lost a son or daughter in military service.

"He knew it was an important job," said Sister Catherine Kaiser, a pastoral administrator at St. Alexander Catholic Church in Port Edwards, Wis., where Johnson grew up.

Johnson's parents, Robert and Elva, are parishioners at St. Alexander and were still awaiting word about their son, who was in the Pentagon when it was struck.

Johnson, 48, was born and raised in Port Edwards. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. In the Army, he worked in the tank division before being moved to the Pentagon. He was married and has two daughters, Kaiser said.

"He was such a caring person," she said.

Sgt. Maj. Larry Strickland

Sgt. Maj. Larry Strickland, 52, of Washington, D.C., came off leave to attend a meeting Sept. 11 at the Pentagon regarding retiree matters with his commander, Lt. Gen. Timothy J. Maude, the Army's deputy chief of staff for personnel, who also was lost in the attack. Strickland's knowledge of Army personnel matters made him an invaluable part of the Pentagon staff, those who knew him said.

Strickland was in his last leave leading up to retirement but came in for the meeting anyway, said retired Command Sgt. Maj. Jimmie Spencer, a friend and colleague.

"He had this unique ability to coordinate personnel action with everybody across the Army, from the private all the way up to the general staff of the Army," said retired Lt. Gen. David Ohle, also a former deputy chief of staff for personnel.

Strickland also met his wife, Command Sgt. Maj. Debra Strickland, who is assigned to Ft. Belvoir, outside Washington, D.C., through the Army.

The day before the plane crashed into the Pentagon, Ohle received a letter from Strickland, thanking his former boss his mentorship.

"Here's a guy sending me a letter thanking me," Ohle said, "and it should be the other way around."

Michael J. McCabe

It was Michael J. McCabe's first week on the job.

After working 18 years at Prudential Securities in New York City, McCabe had just taken a position with the firm Cantor Fitzgerald. And while the firm was on the verge of opening an office in New Jersey, where the Rumson, N.J., resident could work, for the time being he was stationed at Cantor's offices on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center.

"My brother was a good friend, a great husband and a wonderful father," said McCabe's brother Nick. He was married and had three children, two girls and a boy.

Michael McCabe, 42, was born and bred in New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers University.

"We're right on the Jersey shore," Nick McCabe said. "He loved getting into the water and surfing. It was one of his biggest activities."

On Sunday, more than 3,000 people attended a memorial service for McCabe at the beach club. "It was a beautiful day to remember him by," Nick McCabe said.

Maj. Kip Taylor

Maj. Kip Taylor was excited about the coming months for two reasons very dear to him: the birth of his second child in late October and a promotion in November.

Now, his wife, Nancy, and family are gathered in his McLean, Va., home waiting to receive word that Taylor's remains have been recovered.

Taylor, among those missing at the Pentagon, had been stationed there for about three years, said his brother, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Dean Taylor.

"He was the poster boy for the U.S. Army," Taylor said.

The son of a career Army officer, Kip Taylor enlisted after graduating in 1985 from Northern Michigan University.

At the time of the attack, Taylor, 38, worked in the adjutant general's corps and was a key aide to Lt. Gen. Timothy Maude, who is also missing.

Taylor was soon to become Lt. Col. Taylor, his brother said, but delayed the ceremony until late November so relatives could attend. They also would see his new baby.

"It was going to be a meaningful thing," his brother said.

Nehamon Lyons IV

When Nehamon Lyons IV visited relatives in Alabama over the 4th of July, he was full of talk about how much he loved working in the U.S. Navy and living in Washington, D.C.

"He was very happy, very high-spirited, excited," said his cousin, Latrice Racy.

The 30-year-old operations specialist second class had a fairly new posting at the Pentagon. He was there when the plane crashed Tuesday.

"He was kind of shy, a very giving person, very hard-working and dedicated," Racy said.

Lyons planned to make a career in the service.

James M. Roux

The Ale House in Portland, Maine, is considered one of the friendliest taverns in the city's Old Port neighborhood.

The tavern lost a regular, James M. Roux, who was aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed in New York.

Roux, 42, an attorney who left a large law firm in Hartford, Conn., to open a smaller firm in Portland, was remembered as a Renaissance man. He was intelligent and loved the law but also attended more than two dozen Grateful Dead shows. He was dedicated to his two sons, but he was also an adventurer, having climbed Mt. Everest.

"He was just one of those guys you'd love to see every day," said Mike Weston, a bartender at the Ale House. "He was sort of like a frat boy inside the body of a 45-year-old."

U.S. Navy Lt. Eric Allen Cranford, 32, of Drexel, N.C., had worked under the chief of naval operations in the Pentagon since April 1999 and was in the building when American Airlines Flight 77 struck it.

Cranford graduated from East Burke High School in Drexel, a town of 2,000. Cranford, a naval aviator, was commissioned at the University of North Carolina in 1992 and obtained the rank of lieutenant in 1996. He served in a helicopter squadron in Mayport, Fla., and on the USS Gettysburg, USS McInerney and USS Carr. He had been awarded nine service medals.